The S&P 500 surpassed a key resistance level on July 27 and is now within 2 per cent of its record high set on Jan. 4. Our interest now lies in identifying stocks that are maintaining positions close to their 52-week highs, driven by robust price momentum and technical strength. These metrics hold particular significance for traders who closely align with a trend-following strategy – a focus area of our analyst team.

The Bank of Japan will express how it views the current economic growth, inflation and interest rate environment when announcing its interest-rate decision on Tuesday (December 19), which could send shock waves across global stock and forex markets. According to Trading Central's "Economic Insight", the BOJ is expected to keep its key interest rate unchanged at a negative level of -0.100%.

The Japanese yen is currently boosted by market expectations that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will soon end its long-running ultra-easy monetary policy. Investors are therefore watching closely the Bank of Japan Tankan Report (due Wednesday, December 13) in which sentiment of large Japanese enterprises is gauged. Meanwhile, central banks of the U.S., the U.K. and the E.U. are expected to hold interest rates unchanged next week.

A screen for Large-cap stocks listed in the United States exhibiting above-average dividend growth and yield that are trading near 52-week highs.

Some investors are betting the Fed will even cut interest rates in the first quarter of 2024 the earliest. They would therefore like to see continuously softening labor data, which could lead the central bank to shift gear. The U.S. Official Jobs Report (due Friday, December 8) is expected to show that the growth of non-farm payrolls will slow to 100,000 in November.

Using Trading Central's Market Buzz for understanding premarket moves, Unity Software has been identified as an interesting choice.

Using Trading Central's Market Buzz and looking into Top Buzzing ranking to find premarket moves, we have identified Shopify as an interesting choice.

While the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to pause rate-hike again in December, expectations are growing that the central bank will start cutting interest rates next year. Investors are therefore closely watching another round of U.S. inflation data due next week.

Our analyst team searched for Top-quality U.S equities from a factor-investing perspective benefiting from the trend in artificial intelligence (AI).